Andy Murray Plays Both Sides Of The Net On Scotland Question

David Young 08:47 pm, September 18th, 2014

Let's put this in perspective: the big name sports figure that's been central to the Scottish Independence vote has been Andy Murray, the tennis player. You know tennis, the sport played in white shorts on grass (not to be confused with a pre-Labor Day pickup game with JR Smith). But that sums up the whole debate: people arguing with each other about independence while not throwing punches, garbage cans or insults at each other (save for some internet trolls, of course). Just lobbing the ball to each other. As debates go, it's been active, but it's also been tame.

But back to Murray. In the eleventh hour leading up to the vote, Murray tweeted that he backed independence, saying, "Let's do this." (Kinda like if the American Revolution had been sponsored by Nike.) But for a Scot who does not live in Scotland, his words are hollow, if not meaningless. In fact, the next day Murray - who has represented England in the Olympics, the Davis Cup and Wimbledon - said in an interview with the Daily Mail, "I will be playing for Great Britain in the Davis Cup next year, that is for sure, I will be there in March. As far as I’m concerned the vote doesn’t change anything in that regard." So basically Andy is a citizen of the world and ready for any eventuality.

His wishy-washy behavior likely comes from a gaffe back in 2006 when he was asked at Wimbledon whom he was rooting for in the football World Cup. He jokingly said he'd "support anyone but England." As you can imagine, he took all sorts of grief for that remark (but to be fair, "anyone but England" would be the correct prediction for the World Cup winner in every year except 1966). He likely did not want to replay how he was treated the rest of that summer.

Look, Murray has had a hard road. He survived a horrible childhood tragedy and was born with a split knee cap. Good for him becoming a world class athlete, but as one that doesn't live in Scotland, he likely should have kept his mouth shut on the Scottish issue for another 24 hours. The lesson for Murray is, when asked your opinion, either take no sides or one side, but never both. Perhaps Andy sums it up nicely at the 2:45 mark of this clip: